"It's not a part of the world you get to very often," said Christie, who reckons his last Highland appearance was in the 1970s. "I don't know what to expect. It's so long since I've been that far north, I don't know if anyone remembers me! I'm looking forward to finding out how I'm received up there."

Christie, whose 40-year career has received a major boost following the unorthodox revival of his 1971 hit "Amarillo" by comic Peter Kay is not just welcoming his return to Inverness to reacquaint himself with our scenery, however.

"I'm looking forward to it because I've got a new band that I've put together and I've a lot of new stuff as well," Christie said, adding that there will, of course, also be old favourites and songs from his album "Made in Sheffield", which featured songs sourced from such diverse Steel City acts as Pulp's Jarvis Cocker, the Arctic Monkeys and Human League.

"It's quite a mixed bag really," he added.

"We use different sizes of band depending on what we are doing, but I think we're using something like an eight-piece. I used to carry a 10-12 piece, but it's not necessary these days with the technology you have, and also when you have less people it's easier to travel. We get a great sound with what we have anyway."

These days there are fewer of the theatres where Christie began his career, but there are other places to play instead, such as the increasing number of festivals, and last year Christie played the biggest of them all Glastonbury.

"Glastonbury was great," he said. "Doing festivals is interesting because back in the old days when there used to be lots of theatres and cabarets, you knew they were there to see you. It's quite a challenge to get up at a festival and think: 'You're not here for me, but I hope you like it.

"It's quite a buzz to stand on the mainstage in front of 60,000 people or whatever was there. It was quite daunting really, but once you get on there, you get your head down and do your job.

"Hopefully I'll do it again - I'd like to do one of the side stages, something more intimate. When you do the smaller stages you can do ballads and more intimate stuff in a smaller venue. Don't forget, with a festival audience, they're not here to see you.

"They are there for the four days or to see Springsteen or Madness, so you've got a mixed audience. They're basically there because they are music fans and they want to see everything, so I go on and do what I do, and if they enjoy it, that's good. And they generally do."

Much as he would have liked to see a bit more of the festival himself, Christie's schedule meant he had little time to spare at the Somerset festival, though at least his grandkids were able to camp out and sample the Glastonbury experience.

"I arrived an hour before my set, did my set and then left," he said.

"I didn't have much time to socialise, but I did have a chance to have a chat with Tom Jones and a couple of the guys out of Madness and that was about it really."

A fan of music himself, as he approaches his 70s, Christie has no intention of giving up singing.

"I think I'll probably die on stage," he declared.

Tony Christie - rumours of his death were premature.

"In fact, that was the subject I was talking to Tom about. He's a bit older than me, still working and still touring. I've known his tour manager since the '60s and we were chatting backstage and he said: 'Tom will never retire, he enjoys it too much.' Music and singing is his life. And apart from my family and my golf, that's basically what I like to do."

Four decades on from the start of his career, Christie plies his trade in a much changed music industry, but in this age of MP3s and downloads, Christie's recording career is taking a distinctly retro turn with his new project for DJ Gilles Peterson's Acid Jazz label.

"I'm making a purely vinyl album, which will be very, very Northern Soulish," he revealed.

"And very cool actually."

Though Christie's musical career has encompassed Northern Soul, jazz and even included an unlikely hit with guest vocals on the Jarvis Cocker penned "Walk Like a Panther" by All Seeing I, the public associates him most with bold and brassy pop numbers like "Amarillo" and "Avenues and Alleyways", the theme-song from the otherwise little remembered ITV thriller series "The Protectors".

"People think of Tony Christie and 'Amarillo' is all they hear. They don't realise I was a very successful ballad singer on the cabaret circuit," Christie said.

"That was my sort of thing. It just didn't make any money. That's why I took the left fork to the pop side of things. When you get married and start having kids you need to make money, but this thing I'm doing with the Acid Jazz label is probably going back to my roots."

Peter Kay's co-opting of his anthem "Amarillo" for first his Channel 4 comedy show "Phoenix Nights" and then the Comic Relief charity single (with that famous video) revived Christie's profile in Britain, though in Germany and other countries, his popularity has never dipped. In fact his popularity in Europe was one factor that led him to move to Spain, though following "Amarillo's" revival, he has since returned to the UK.

However, Christie, who admits to being "a little bit gobsmacked" when he saw Peter Kay making use of "Amarillo" on "Phoenix Nights", revealed that the song's highly successful resurrection as the most successful single of the millennium almost never happened at all.

"It was a twist of fate really," he said.

"When I talked to him about it, it was a toss up between two songs he wanted to use for that sketch and one of them was 'Amarillo'. The other was Shaking Stevens' 'This Ol' House'. The only reason they stuck with 'Amarillo' was that Paddy McGuinness had trouble learning the lyrics of 'This Ol' House'... but he could remember 'Sha-la-la'.

"It sparked off a lot of other things and got my name back.

"The funny thing was a few years before when I was living in Spain, a friend I knew from Manchester phoned and said Picadilly Radio had just played one of my old records and the DJ said: 'There's Tony Christie, I've not heard from him a long time, I wonder what's happened to him.' Somebody rang in and said: 'He's dead.'

"Which was a surprise to me!" Christie laughed.

* Tony Christie appears at The Ironworks on Thursday.

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